A Conversation with Phyllis Newman

The Tony Award-winning actress reflects on her breast cancer diagnosis more than 25 years later.

by Laura Shipp

Phyllis Newman got her start in
show business imitating Carmen
Miranda professionally in
Atlantic City when she was four years
old. But it was her portrayal of Martha
Vale in the musical Subways Are for
Sleeping – in which she wore only a
bath towel – that earned her a Tony
Award and catapulted her to national
fame. More recently, in June 2009, she
received her second Tony Award, the
newly created Isabelle Stevenson Award
for her philanthropic efforts in the
theater community.

Though she is a self-proclaimed
Broadway baby, Phyllis’s career doesn’t
end at the footlights. She has worked
extensively in television – including being
the first woman to host The Johnny
Carson Show – and in film. In addition
to acting, Phyllis is a writer, a director,
a producer, and the founder of the Phyllis
Newman Women’s Health Initiative of
The Actor’s Fund of America. The Initiative
addresses the countless concerns
women in the entertainment industry
face when dealing with a serious medical
condition, like cancer.

And like so many philanthropic organizations,
this one was birthed from
personal experience. Phyllis Newman
is a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed
in 1983. A time when there were
no pink ribbons, when October only signified
the beginning of fall, and when so
many women with breast cancer lacked
survivorship role models because the
disease still carried a stigma and very
few women discussed it openly.

”You didn’t know many people who were survivors
because everyone was so quiet about it then.”

She found the lump in her breast during
a self-exam and promptly scheduled
a mammogram. Her husband was with
her for the screening, and Phyllis recalls
her doctor mostly addressing her husband,
rather than her, about the results.
“It was so condescending,” she reveals
in an interview with Coping® magazine.
“There was just so much insensitivity in
the way [breast cancer] was described,
and you were treated like a child.” For
example, one doctor
even told her that
her other breast,
which showed no
evidence of disease,
was “a ticking bomb.”
Phyllis opted to have both breasts
removed. This was followed by weekly,
low-dose chemotherapy – a regimen
that didn’t cause hair loss and allowed
Phyllis to continue her theater work
during treatment. About her double
mastectomy, Phyllis says, “I have never
been sorry that I did it because it took
away all of that endless worry.”

Another decision about which Phyllis
has no regrets is forgoing reconstructive
surgery. “I just didn’t want to have any
more surgery of any kind,” Phyllis confides.
Though she does admit that if she
were faced with the same decision in
2010, with the advances that have been
made since the 1980s (such as immediate
post-mastectomy breast reconstruction),
she probably would have chosen
differently. “Even though I have never
regretted not having reconstruction surgery,”
she says, “the truth is that if back
then, the surgery was like it is now,
I would have done it.”

Medical advancements are not the
only thing that has changed in the past
quarter-century since Phyllis’s breast
cancer diagnosis. Where “cancer” was
once a seldom-uttered word, it is now
the subject of movies, books, news
stories, talk shows … even magazines.
“You didn’t hear a lot of inspirational
stories, or you didn’t know many people
who were survivors because everyone
was so quiet about it then,” Phyllis
recalls. “Now, women can look at somebody
like Christina Applegate. You see
this beautiful young lady who has had
a double mastectomy, who is still working,
and who is talking about it. That
would be terrific, I would think, to be
able to have a role model. I think that
makes a huge difference.”

Cancer-free for more than 25 years,
77-year-old Phyllis is still acting, still
writing, and still raising awareness for
women’s health issues and needs. And
if you want to know the secret to her
resilience, Phyllis says, “You just have
to keep showing up. That’s the secret,
really. Keep showing up.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Action! For more information about the
Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative
of The Actor’s Fund of America, visit
ActorsFund.org.

This article was originally published in Coping® with Cancer magazine,
May/June
2010.